THE ABSENT

CRIPPLED HEARTS

SOLIDARITY WITH THE FLESH EATING MOSAIC AND OTHER POEMS by Raj Dronamraju

Out Now

THE RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT NINNY AND OTHER POEMS by Raj Dronamraju

My first book of poetry available through Amazon and other online booksellers www.rajbooks.com

Friday, October 30, 2015

CHOOSING SIDES

What the hashtag I Stand with Russia means to me is support for Russia in Syria against ISIS which is a creation of the United States and Israel to affect regime change in Syria but also to create destabilization that will ensure continued American hegemony in the region along with US client states Israel and Saudi Arabia.

But it also goes deeper than that. There is a conflict coming - The sides are not drawn along such clear ideological separations as they were during the Cold War. Rather this conflict will be over whether we are going to remain a unipolar world with American dominance and all the negative results of that or whether we are going to have a truly bipolar world or more likely a world where American empires fades ( as all empires do) to be replaced by another - China seems the most likely prospect. I do feel America is a dying empire now - All financial and cultural indicators point to this as does overextension abroad.

On one side is America, Israel of course, Saudi Arabia and other US vassal states, a large part of Europe although I think that might change as on issues like austerity and support for Israel the European populace may be going in a different direction....On the other side, we have Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, any country that feels threatened by America's bully boy tactics. In between are countries like India, Malaysia (where I live) that are sort of in the US sphere but could easily switch based on world events and the economy.

What is specifically being fought against is US imperialism, the US overthrowing governments it doesn't like. This type of practice seemed to disappear after the Cold War but has resurfaced with a vengeance in the last decade or so as the coup victims in the Ukraine, Egypt, and Honduras and the victims of attempted coups/regime change in Venezuela and Syria can attest to. The battle here is for the IMF and other groups to apply loansharking principles that keep poor countries disenfranchised and allow the West to exploit them. They call it austerity but it is really just soaking the poor to prop up the 1% - Gangster capitalism. Whether or not a country has valuable natural resources is also a justification for monkey business. Islamic fundamentalism (often created and funded by America itself) is another excuse for America to insert itself not just in The Middle East but increasingly in Africa too. The Iraq war mindset - preemption, the vestiges of colonialism (of which Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is the primary example), water rights, all issues America is on the wrong side of.

Of course, China is also moving in to Africa and I am certainly not holding up China or Russia as moral paragons although neither poses as much a threat to the world's well-being as America. For now, the bigger problem is America and as far standing up to the USA, I'll take what I can get.

Will this new conflict be a hot war or a cold war? There will be warfare involving Israel at some point perhaps Iran too. American provocations in the South China Sea could lead to conflict as could Ukraine but I tend to think like the cold war, most battles will be between surrogates.

It is clear that after a decade and a half of playing possum (other than responding to Georgia's provocations in 2008), Russia is back and that is a good thing for the world. This time around the evil empire is the United States (to some of us it always was).